A Strange Vampire
by MorbidMan
Summary: One night Buffy is out hunting vampires in her new residence post-Sunnydale. During this night she sees a vampire and goes to stake it. But she doesn't open hearing it request of her one thing. "Help me." And she also notices he is still half alive.
1. Morning Conversation and Night Hunt

_** A Strange Vampire**_  
  
**Chapter One:**  
**Morning Conversation and Night Hunt**  
  
It was over a year since the First had been destroyed. Over a year since the destruction of Sunnydale and the Hellmouth that the town sat upon. Buffy and Dawn had gone from place to place and from country to country. They had stopped in Rome once, which is where Buffy had had a short fling with the Immortal.  
  
Now the two were back in the United States of America. New York state to be exact. They weren't alone, either. Andrew had been with them the whole way. His annoying character was something that they couldn't bear to part with now. They didn't know why.  
So, now living in Falconer, New York, they had begun to rebuild their lives. Buffy was still trying to forget about Angel, trying to move on. Dawn was trying to get a normal life again. She was about to enter her senior year at high school. Andrew was just walking around. An annoying and sci-fi obsessed entity in their house who brought home a minimum-wage paycheck every week from a video store.  
  
Every now and then they'd get a call from an old friend. Alexander Harris, Willow Rosenberg, and Rupert Giles were all in different places in the world. Xander was in Australia working at a McDonald's somewhere in the southern part of the island. He had become a sort of Watcher in this post-Council of Watchers world. He had located a Slayer who didn't know who or what she was and took her under his wing. Giles was in England, doing what he had been doing in the two years since he left. Willow was in Africa, trying to continue getting her power under control and trying to get it to grow. Those calls were far and in between. They were all busy. Too busy.  
Now that summer was ending Dawn was dreading going to school, remembering all of the horrible incidences from her last couple of years at high school. Not just the vampires and demons that plagued Sunnydale High, but the jocks and assholes.  
  
Buffy reassured her continuously that things would be different at Falconer Central School (not High School because it contained both Middle and High schools). It was supposed to be a much better school than most in the area. Not as large as Jamestown High (Falconer was a village encircled by the much larger Jamestown, the birthplace of Lucille Ball and Roger Tory Peterson) and not so largely populated by asshole teenagers who thought they knew everything when they knew damn near nothing.  
  
Buffy began to patrol the village night after night. Since this village didn't sit on a Hellmouth the demon count was drastically reduced from what it had been in Sunnydale and Buffy had yet to stake a single vamp. Not only that but the cemetery was small and unfenced. She needed to walk all the way to the cemetery in Jamestown to even stand a chance of encountering a vampire. It was new ground that she was covering now, and this new ground was much more constricted than the old ground. She was grateful for the break from her Slayer duties at the same time that she was despising it. She wanted to hunt and to kill. It was her nature. But there was nothing to hunt and nothing to kill. It was infuriating as much as it was relaxing.  
  
Since the school had all of its positions filled, Buffy needed to find another place to work. She briefly considered working at the McDonald's right at the border that separated Jamestown and Falconer, but then remembered her history at fast food restaurants. No way was she gonna go to work for another fast food corporation.  
  
Then came Dawn's first day at the new school. It was seven in the morning--this was forty short minutes before the school day began--and Dawn was eating some Honeycombs after taking a shower and getting dressed. What she was wearing was a red T-shirt (Old Man Winter had not yet arrived, and she wanted to get as much use out of the new shirt as she could) and faded blue jeans.  
  
"Morning," Buffy greeted her from the sink. They were living in a two-story house on East Elmwood. Their house was close to a trail that led over a footbridge and through a very small, dirt road to the school. It was a walk that would take less than ten minutes to finish. Dawn would need to hurry out the door if she was going to make it to the school, to her locker to put away her backpack, and to the classroom on time. Hopefully the time schedule wasn't very strict on the first day, why would it be?  
  
"Good morning," Dawn replied. She was still a quarter asleep. Her eyes were narrow slits as she emotionlessly ate her bowl of cereal. "Can't wait to go through Hell today." Buffy looked at Dawn, who was smiling to show that she wasn't serious. Apparently Dawn had finally realized that after enduring Evil Willow and battling the First, school was nothing. Good thing, too; her attitude was getting annoying. Not annoying in a good way like Andrew, but annoying in a bad way like a mosquito bite.  
  
"Luckily this school isn't sitting on the mouth to it," Buffy said with a smile. Dawn smiled, too. Ever since they had moved to Falconer, things had been much better.  
Andrew came into the kitchen in his blue bathrobe at that point. He looked a bit irritated.  
  
"Whoever leaves the toilet seat down next gets my foot up her ass." Then he went back up the stairs.  
  
Buffy and Dawn burst into laughter.  
  
Patrol  
  
Buffy was whistling as she walked through the Lakeview Cemetery. The gates had closed three hours before and she had crawled under the plastic, mesh fence to get inside. A stake was dangling from her gloved hand. She was bored. Once again there had not been a single vampire in the cemetery.  
  
She walked past a couple of mausoleums and James Prendergast's grave. Jame Prendergast was the founder of Jamestown, the town that encircled Falconer. The mausoleums in this cemetery were much stronger than the ones in Sunnydale. They were locked and chained with metal doors. No flimsy wood that could be kicked in.  
  
What Buffy was whistling was the song "Where is My Mind" by the Pixies. Soon she started singing it under her breath.  
  
" 'Try this trick and spin it. Yeah. You're head'll collapse 'cause there's nothing in it and you'll ask yourself 'where is my mind?' " Then she stopped singing. Joseph Remalk had been in the newspaper a few days before. She had passed over his name quickly in the obituaries. She had passed him off as having died in a car accident or from a heart attack or something else. She had been wrong.  
  
His grave, which had been dug a couple days before and then filled in, was now dug out again. Just a hole in the new ground was sufficient enough to let her know that Joseph was a vampire.  
There was finally something to do! Buffy clutched her stake tighter and headed off in the direction that the foot prints of fresh dirt and mud led, not wanting to lose the vampire.  
  
In the distance she could hear semi-trucks and cars driving up and down the road that connected to the highway that could lead you to Niagara Falls or down to Pennsylvania or wherever you wanted to go.  
  
Other than those engines the night was silent. Crickets chirped and the wind blew. Buffy listened closely, hoping to hear the footsteps of Joseph. Unfortunately, all she could hear was her own footsteps. She neared the gate at the northern part of the cemetery. It was busted open. That would cost some money to repair.  
  
The footprints were easier to see now on the pavement, but the quantity of dirt being left behind was decreasing. She'd need to hurry even more. So she did.  
  
At the end of the street, just when the footsteps were becoming almost invisible, she saw Joseph.  
  
She was too late.  
  
The vampire looked up from its victim. Its victim was a young, skinny woman. Probably in her late teens or early twenties.  
  
Joseph himself was at least mid-thirties. She could tell because his face wasn't vamped at that point. Blood was running down his chin and he looked scared. Very scared. The vampire began to back up from its victim. Buffy could hear it muttering something.  
  
She didn't care.  
  
Sprinting towards the immobile vampire she readied her stake. She hit the vamp at the top of her  
speed and they both went sprawling, Buffy on top of the vampire.  
  
She lifted her stake up and plunged down with it.  
  
The stake hovered an inch above Joseph's chest. Buffy was looking at the vampire's chest, her eyes squinted in concentration, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. Then she realized what had caught her eye.  
  
The vampire was breathing. Joseph was breathing. He was warm, too. Far above room temperature.  
  
She lowered her stake and looked into Joseph's eyes. He was crying. Buffy couldn't hear the sobs, though. She couldn't hear anything at that point. She had seen the man's face in the obituaries. He wasn't alive. Science had proven that. But… he was alive.  
  
"Help me," Joseph breathed in a voice that was slurred. He sounded like his IQ was far below average. "Help me help me help me help me help me. God God God God God." "What's this?"  
  
Buffy asked, her eyes still squinted.  
  
And then Buffy was flying through the air and slamming into the street fifteen feet away from the man who couldn't be alive but was.  
  
She looked up at him and saw his face.  
  
It was more terrible than even the Master's face. It looked a thousand years old. Wrinkles all over it. The eyes were blood red and the teeth were all fangs. There was no more breathing, but there was growling.  
  
Then Joseph was back and screaming in a high-pitched voice. Almost a shriek. He fell to his knees and the horrific vampire came back. The blood was coagulating on its chin.  
  
It roared a roar that Buffy had never heard before then but would hear numerous times after. Joseph came back. This time he was shrieking. Buffy sat there, stupefied.  
  
Only when Joseph ran into the collection of conifer trees beside the road did she snap out of the daze she had been in. She took chase. It was futile, though. Joseph, the vampire, whatever he or it was, was gone.  
  
She had lost Joseph.  
  
After another fifteen minutes of fruitlessly chasing whatever Joseph had become, Buffy went home, defeated. Dawn was watching a movie edited for TV. Buffy didn't catch what it was but heard a lot of gun shots and explosions and shouting.  
  
Her head was spinning. She had let it go. Dawn asked her if she was okay and Buffy said she was. Andrew was in the bathroom and Buffy was forced to puke into the garbage can in the kitchen. After the fact she noted quite dully that there hadn't been a garbage bag in the can. It had been garbage night and Dawn had forgotten to replace the bag like usual.  
  
Dawn insisted that she get some rest and inquired if she should call a doctor. Buffy said yes to the statement and no to the question. She went into the bedroom that she shared with Dawn--there were only two bedrooms and neither of them were about to sleep in the same room with Andrew--and collapsed on the bed. Five minutes later she was sleeping soundly.  
She dreaded the next time she would flip to the obituaries. That thing, Joseph, was going to kill and she had let it go. She was at fault for so many deaths that would take place after that night.  
But for the moment, she slept.

* * *

Hey, MorbidMan here. I hope you enjoyed this beginning chapter. Give me constructive criticism please. I'm not a perfect writer and never will be, but I want to be a really good writer and I don't believe I am yet. Well, I guess I am for just being fifteen (most of those in my class can only write comedy, and not that well at that.  
Anyway, please review. I feel narcissistic for placing this story in my home town. So, I'm gonna go hire hookers and kill innocent people and cops and SWAT in my new "GTA" games. See you next chapter.  
  
"Charlie: I've written myself into my own screenplay.  
Donald: Kinda confusing?  
Charlie: It's narcissistic." - conversation "Adaptation" 


	2. Two Weeks Later

** Chapter Two:**  
**Two Weeks Later**  
  
Seven deaths. In two weeks there had been seven deaths. Each of them reported with either a giant tear on their neck or two large holes and a total drainage of blood. It was that vampire. Joseph. Joseph Remalk. Buffy knew it had been that vampire for every single death. That strange vampire. She wasn't even sure if it was a vampire. Maybe it was some new demon.  
If she knew Giles's phone number she'd call him and explain it to him. Unfortunately she only knew Xander's phone number. So she had called Xander very quickly only to find she had gotten charged long distance for nothing. Xander had no idea. Willow didn't have a phone. She always called from a pay phone.  
  
So Buffy was reduced to only hoping that Giles would call.  
  
For the moment, though, she'd have to hunt every night and pray to God she'd either find it or at least not read about another death in the paper. This was possibly a record for the small village. Seven deaths. One week.  
  
" 'You will die in seven days,' " Buffy sometimes thought to herself. She didn't know why, but seven deaths in one week reminded her of that movie, "The Ring".  
  
She hunted every single night, searching all over the city. She wanted Joseph, the vampire, the something, to be dead. To die at her hands. To die horribly.  
  
Furious hunting. A stake in hand at all times.  
  
She had told Dawn and Andrew about the incident and they had both reassured her it wasn't her fault. What had been the purpose of telling them? Only for them to ask her continuously the same questions she had thought of and had no answer for? Only for them to pity her state of mind?  
  
She didn't know. All she knew is that she regretted telling them. She wanted to find Joseph so badly now. That face of his… that vampire face, it brought her nightmares.  
She realized that she'd be killing two birds with one staked vampire. She'd stop having nightmares, and the death would stop. The killing spree would come to an end. An abrupt one.  
  
At the new Summers Residence…  
  
"It isn't your fault," Dawn said suddenly during some shampoo commercial. (Who cares which shampoo? All shampoo commercials are the same)  
  
"You've said that too many times, Dawn," Buffy replied.  
  
"That's because you aren't listening," Dawn retorted. Buffy didn't say anything. "Anyone would've hesitated in a situation like that. You didn't know what was going on so you hesitated in what you were doing. It's human nature. Giles would have done it. Wesley would've done it. I would've done it. Ang--" Angel's name had become a sort of forbidden thing to speak of ever since he had become the head of Los Angeles's Wolfram and Hart chapter. That was a big no-no. "A-Anyone would've done it. If you want to blame someone or something for these deaths blame the damn vampire. I don't mean to sound like I'm out of a super-hero movie, but stop holding the weight of the world on your shoulders. It ain't good for your back." Buffy and Dawn chuckled a bit. Usually that's when Buffy would say that she supposed Dawn was right--a big lie--but this time she didn't. So Dawn hoped that she had gotten through Buffy's head this time.  
  
That's when the made-for-TV horror movie about sharks that they had been watching came back on. The movie seemed a lot like "Jaws" except, you know, worse. Much worse. The sisters had quite a few laughs about the unbelievable cheesiness of the movie through the night.  
When that was over, Buffy became a hunter again. The night was still young so she grabbed her stake and her crossbow and headed out to search for the vampire that had killed seven. Joseph Remalk, who Buffy had made up her mind would be dead before the end of the night.  
So she began hunting. Falconer Street, Elmwood Street, West Everett Street, Cross Avenue, Lakeview Cemetery, Falconer Park, Falconer Central School. None of those places yielded any vampire.  
  
So she went to the other cemetery. Falconer's cemetery.  
  
Climbing up the steep hill that the cemetery was set upon was an arduous task and she felt it would be for nothing.  
  
But Joseph was wandering through the dark cemetery. He was walking slowly and babbling. He was babbling something that sounded like it was from the Bible. A prayer, maybe.  
Anger, frustration, and the need for vengeance on behalf of all of those dead surged through Buffy suddenly and fiercely. She felt she wouldn't be able to contain it all. She leapt out of her hiding space (a taller tombstone) and brought out her stake. She landed ten feet away from Joseph silently. But he still heard her. He still turned.  
  
And he cried. He sobbed. Buffy charged, leaning low, breathing hard. She wanted the vampire dead.  
  
The stake was so close to Joseph's heart. His dead heart.  
  
(he was warm)  
  
Dust would fly everywhere.  
  
(maybe his heart was pumping)  
  
She would emerge victorious in the battle.  
  
(maybe he's still alive)  
  
She would kill the killer of seven.  
  
(maybe he's half-human and half-vampire)  
  
No more deaths.  
  
(he's special)  
  
No more violence.  
  
(let the hunt go on)  
  
Peace would prevail.  
  
(help him)  
  
And the stake was swatted away by a hand with claws that was twice the size of Buffy's own hands. She heard a bone or two snap and screamed in surprise mingled with pain.  
  
The monstrous vampire was standing in front of her again.  
  
But then it was Joseph. Then Joseph changed back into the vampire. The vampire lunged forth and pushed Buffy to the ground, landing on top of her. Its fangs came close to her neck. Her neck which appeared so delicious to the vampire. Her veins. Her blood.  
  
Then Joseph came back. He was crying again, trying to keep from changing back into the vampire.  
  
"NO!" Joseph shrieked. His eye twitched and his head flew back. His hands went to his head. He was now sitting on Buffy's knees. Buffy pushed him off with tremendous force and grabbed the crossbow from her concealed holster under her jacket. She took aim and fired.  
The arrow hit Joseph's arm because Buffy's vision had been temporarily distorted from the fall and the near-death experience.  
  
She could almost hear Joseph's blood cells screaming "FREEDOM!" as they gushed out of his arrow-wound.  
  
Joseph stopped screaming and looked at the arrow sticking out of his arm.  
  
Then he laughed. Then he began crying. Then both.  
  
He looked at Buffy with eyes that were swimming in tears.  
  
"Help," he pleaded. Saliva was dripping out of his mouth and down his chin. Then he leaned back and bellowed a guttural scream into the sky. "I need help!"  
  
Later on…  
  
"Hey, Buffy," Dawn said at one in the morning in her bath robe and eating cereal. "Just up for a midnight sna--who the hell is that?" Joseph followed Buffy into the kitchen not a moment after Buffy herself had come into the kitchen. He was a mess. His clothes, the clothes he had been buried in, were ragged and dirt-clad, his hair was greasy and full of more dirt, and all of his exposed skin was dark from a layer of dust and dirt and mud. That is, except for his tear-tracks.  
Buffy hesitated, not certain of how Dawn would react to the truth. To her misjudgment. She had made a mistake. Why hadn't she just killed Joseph? Why wasn't she right then?  
  
"This is Joseph Remalk," Buffy informed Dawn without hearing her own voice. "Joseph, this is Dawn Summers." Dawn sat up so quickly from the kitchen table that her chair overturned and her bowl of cereal spilled.  
  
That's also when Buffy was knocked out of the kitchen by a vampire's clawed hand. She yelped and scrambled to her feet as she skidded across the carpet in the dining room.  
The vampire-Joseph then rounded on Dawn. She stood still for a second, not certain of what to do, then hurled a chair at the hulking vampire with orange-looking skin. The vampire knocked it away much as it had done the stake in Buffy's hand.  
  
"What's all the ruckus?" Andrew asked as he walked into the kitchen and was abruptly smacked back out. He shouted in pain once before passing out.  
Buffy ran back into the kitchen and Joseph changed back into his human form, screaming. Buffy took out her crossbow and hit him in the back of the head with its butt. He hit the ground like so many bricks.  
  
That way he wouldn't vamp-out while she tied him up to the water-heater in the basement.  
  
And he didn't.  
  
The chains were durable but Buffy feared the pipes that Joseph was chained to wouldn't hold out very well under continuous stress. They'd need to get a better anchor.  
  
Too bad she didn't know how much sooner she should've gotten one.

* * *

Hey, MorbidMan here. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It was supposed to be longer, but the other half will be chapter three. Don't want to get started on things too soon. If you like this fic of mine, I think you'd like my "Angel" fic called "The Final Apocalypse". It's much longer with more characters and more layers. A much more complicated story, but still with the same style and everything. Anyway, please review. See you next chapter and all of that. And in response to my one reviewer so far, yes, the vampire and Joseph are in the same body.  
  
"What I've created will be studied and puzzled over… forever." - John Doe "Seven" a very good, yet morbid and disturbing movie by David Fincher ("Alien 3", "Fight Club", "Panic Room"), recommended to those without weak stomachs 


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